and I will carry you forward
by aqaws321
Summary: Jack Dalton: suave, handsome, charming, and definitely the person to go to for secret agent jobs. He comes prepared for almost anything on his latest mission, as a good agent should be. One of the things he isn't prepared for, however, is an unexpectedly young partner. Things go downhill from there. Part 1 of Life, Interrupted series. Crossposted to Ao3 under the same author name.


**Warnings for: implied violence, violence towards children. Nothing graphic, though, more just the after-effects.**

 **This an AU of the new 2016 show.**

 **Reviews are appreciated, but not required. :)**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

There were certain expectations that came with accepting a job for a government-affiliated agency, like the expectation that the partner assigned to you for the mission would be able to legally drink.

Therefore, when Jack accepted a job for a company called Penumbra, Inc., which worked closely with the government to develop weapons, he had certain expectations along the previously stated lines.

When Jack was told that his partner was in a room just down the hall outside the briefing room, he did not expect to find someone that very obviously did not meet those guidelines.

Jack walked into the room and stopped barely avoided tripping over his own feet in surprise. This was not what he was expecting. A kid, no older than seventeen, was sitting on a chair that was placed to the side of the room. He looked up at Jack, an expectant look in his pale blue eyes, and shot out of the chair and stood at what could roughly be termed as 'standing at attention.'

Jack grinned to himself, if a bit uneasily. There was an anxious look in the kid's eyes that Jack didn't like. _Well, whatever,_ Jack decided.

The only thing Jack could think to do to relieve the tension was to start a conversation, as the kid sure wasn't going to do anything. "So," he began, "Have you seen a guy named Angus around here? I'm supposed to be meeting him somewhere around here, but I might've gotten the wrong room…"

The kid hastily shook his head. "No, this is the right room. I'm MacGyver. Angus."  
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Well, which is it?"

The kid-MacGyver-flushed. "My name's Angus, but I prefer MacGyver." Upon seeing Jack's somewhat confused face, MacGyver flushed even deeper. "Um, you can call me whatever."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Whatever, kid. I'm supposed to grab you and tell you that the briefing for our next mission is about to begin. Let's go."

Jack turned and began walking back towards the briefing room, with MacGyver following just behind him. Once they had reached their destination Jack took a seat towards the back. After some slight hesitation on the part of the kid, Jack rolled his eyes and grabbed his wrist, pulling him into the empty seat next to the older man. Jack didn't miss the slight stiffening that went through MacGyver when Jack grabbed his wrist, and the twinge of unease came back, except a little louder and more pronounced. Jack shoved it out of his mind, though, and focused on the soon-to-begin briefing.

The head of Penumbra, Inc., Lauren Hastene, stepped forward. "As this mission is of utmost importance, I'll be briefing you on it. Mr. Dalton, I see you've met MacGyver. He'll be your partner on this mission."

Barely waiting for Jack to acknowledge her words, she continued on. "The Russians have stolen something from us. It's a small hard drive, which, while it may not look like much, contains the plans for a new weapon. I'm not at liberty to tell you what the weapon is, but be aware that should Russia be able to decrypt the drive there could very well be another World War-one that we would most likely lose. From the time that you arrive at the drop point, you will have, by our estimates, sixty-one hours to retrieve the drive. There will be a team waiting at the extraction point," Hastene paused to point at a red-circled point on a map, "but if you miss the extraction time we will have to pull out after thirty minutes. We cannot risk being caught in Russian territory, especially if you fail."

 _Yeah, don't worry about making us nervous. Nothing like the threat of Russia beating us in another World War to motivate someone,_ Jack thought wryly. He nodded his understanding, listening to the rest of the briefing-consisting mainly of details about the natives-with great attention. He wasn't so engrossed in it, though, that he didn't notice the way MacGyver had stilled almost immediately after Hastene had come into the room. He was following the briefing with a look in his eyes that was so intense that it was almost scary.

Once the briefing was over, Jack and MacGyver were told to be in the hangar in an hour for the flight to the drop point, just outside Demtrik, Russia. The town was a front for a Russian experimental facility, where the drive was believed to be. This information was known to the Americans because of a spy that had been planted in the Russians and had found out about the flash drive. The spy was also to be extracted, as his cover was too risky to maintain after this.

Jack arrived at the hangar after the kid. He was about to join the younger man in waiting by the plane, but was stopped by Hastene before he could.

Jack looked down at the shorter woman, waiting for her to begin speaking. "Jack, just a moment. On the mission, should you have any trouble with MacGyver, be it not following orders or anything else; just say the phrase 'lonely grass.' It will make him compliant to your orders in regards to the mission."

Jack stared at her for a moment, unable to process what he was hearing. Years of not letting people know what he really thought came into effect, though, and his face remained carefully uninterested. "Thanks for the tip. I'll see you after a successful mission."

The director nodded, seeming to find nothing wrong with his expression, and released his arm to allow him to continue towards the plane that would take them to Demtrik.

Jack approached the kid, a slightly sick feeling in his stomach, which was only magnified when he saw the way the kid shot to his feet from where he had been sitting against the wall when he saw Jack approaching. The wariness in MacGyver's eyes suddenly made a lot of sense to the older man. He gave no hint of it, though, as he nodded towards the plane and asked, "You ready?"  
The kid nodded once, jerkily, and bent down to pick up a small duffle bag of supplies by his feet. With a glance at the other man, the MacGyver walked to the plane and boarded, with Jack just behind him.

* * *

They were in the air. They were in the air and Jack had decided that it was _not fair_ that he couldn't fall asleep as easily as MacGyver had. The boy had dropped off to the land of dreams almost as soon as they had taken off. Jack watched him, lost in his thoughts, until something roused him from the almost-doze he had drifted into. He was unsure what the source of the small noise had been until he heard it again. It was almost a whimper, but not quite. And it was coming from the person across from Jack-MacGyver.

Jack watched as the kid twitched in his sleep, his eyelids moving underneath his eyelids as he began to enter a dream that was apparently distressing to him. Now, Jack might have liked his image of 'tough guy who cares about nothing except getting the job done, and especially not about the kid who was obviously on the wrong side of twenty,' but he wasn't about to let some kid have a nightmare while Jack was sitting across from him.

Jack nudged the younger man's leg with his foot. MacGyver's eyes shot open, and he stared at Jack, a haunted look in his eyes. Jack merely looked back for a moment, before shrugging and saying, "I wanted to know how much experience you've had with missions."

Jack was satisfied with the excuse he'd come up with. It let him look as if he hadn't cared about the kid having a nightmare, while also letting the kid have an out and not be embarrassed about the nightmare. Speaking of which, MacGyver had stopped staring at him and had instead shifted his gaze to the floor and began speaking. "Um-yes. I do have experience. I've gone on a lot of missions for Penumbra. What about you?"

Jack rolled his shoulders, shifting slightly in his seat to get more comfortable. "I do more freelance work. Used to be in the army. Once I got out, it was a bit hard to go back to my old job as a grocery-store manager, and so I decided to use some of the skills I had learned."  
MacGyver looked back up at him, pale eyes peeking warily out from under a fringe of blonde hair. "How long were you in the army for?"

Jack rubbed his hand over the stubble that had grown on his jaw over the past few days-he was trying to grow a beard-as he thought. "Just over five years. I've been out for about four now."

MacGyver nodded, seeming to lose the thread of the conversation. Jack mentally shrugged. He had distracted the kid from his nightmare, which had been his goal. They were almost to the drop point anyway, so a few minutes of silence wouldn't hurt anyone.

* * *

After parachuting from an airplane and landing in what seemed like the only tree with an angry mother bird in it for miles around, Jack was in an understandably bad mood. He had had to wait for MacGyver to untangle himself from his own parachute, climb the tree, and saw through Jack's harness with a knife that the kid had produced from his boot, all while Jack was trying to fend off a dive-bombing, angry-as-all-heck mother bird. By the time they had gotten to the ground, both had more than a few scratches.

As they walked towards the compound, MacGyver was quiet. Jack found this a bit odd, as whenever the man had worked with younger men before, they had normally been chatty. _But considering MacGyver,_ Jack thought wryly, thinking about what he had learned of the boy's behavior patterns, _maybe it's not that surprising._

The two men continued to the compound, reaching a good vantage point just before dark. There they set up camp and established a watch schedule. They only had thirty more hours to regain the flash drive, if Penumbra's estimates were anything to go by.

Jack took the last watch, from 3 am until 6 am. When he returned to camp MacGyver was awake, but just barely, it seemed. His hair had a mussed look that added to Jack's growing conviction that the kid had just rolled out of bed-or off the ground, as the case was.

The younger man had gotten a granola bar out of his rations-probably one of his last ones, if Jack and he had gotten the same amount, and was devouring it with the gusto of teenage males everywhere. He glanced up as Jack came into view, then went back to his breakfast. _Although_ , Jack noted with a tinge of victory, _he seems more comfortable around me now._

Jack ate his last couple granola bars as well, knowing that there was no point saving the food, as they wouldn't be returning to the site for an extended stay. After the two had packed their things, they left them in a convenient hollow tree nearby, then returned to the site to go over the plan they had established on the plane ride over one more time.

Jack pointed to MacGyver, saying, "So we'll grab a guard and you'll be the 'prisoner' that I'm escorting. Then, once we get inside, I'll grab the spy and you'll get the flash drive from the office where it's being held, according to the info we have."

The kid nodded, then said, "How come you're the guard instead of me?"

Jack grinned. "I thought you might ask that. No offense, kid, but you look about as Russian as Chewbacca."

MacGyver looked a little puzzled by the blatant _Star Wars_ reference, but Jack ignored it. It was time to get started.

* * *

 _Well,_ Jack thought, _this sucks._

He was staring at the decidedly smug face of the spy, who was smirking at the man being held on his knees by two huge guards. The spy-John Strey-leaned in close to the American. "You shouldn't have come, you fool."

Jack grimaced up at the man. "I guess it's true that anyone can be bought."

Strey sneered down at Jack. "You think that it was hard? I was never a spy for America. I'm Russian on my mother's side, and the Russian government recruited me when I was a child."

Jack nodded thoughtfully, seeming to consider Strey's words. Then, when the man leaned in close to taunt Jack yet again, he surged upwards, driving his head into Strey's nose. The Russian guards shouted at him, forcing him back to his knees, while Strey let loose a string of words that could not be said in polite company. He clutched his face for a moment before gingerly moving his hands away to reveal a nose that, while slightly crooked, didn't have any blood dripping from it, much to Jack's disappointment. Then, suddenly, Jack's gaze was redirected from the man in front of him to the ground. It took Jack a moment to realize that he had been hit.

The throbbing just below his cheekbone helped him come to this conclusion.

Strey pulled his head back up with a furious snarl on his face. "Maybe you won't be so reckless when you see who else we've caught."  
Jack's heart sank. He had been hoping that MacGyver would've been able to get out and get help. He turned his head to look at the doorway that Strey motioned to. Sure enough, a struggling blond head was seen being forced through the doorway. A moment later, the rest of MacGyver's furiously thrashing body came into view, being man-handled by two more Russian guards that were similar in appearance to the ones that surrounded Jack.

Strey grinned, an expression that did not reach his eyes. The kid was forced to his knees beside Jack, and when Jack looked over at him, there was a spark of what was unmistakably panic in his eyes. The boy continued to struggle violently, as much as he could, and attempted to jerk his head from the grasp of Strey when the man seized MacGyver's jaw with his fingers. "Now, now," the older man said, "We both know what happens when you don't listen to your superiors on missions, don't we?"

Jack hadn't thought it was possible, but the panic in the kid's eyes grew even more pronounced, and his struggled increased in intensity. Strey watched him for a moment, then said, with a cruel sneer, "Lonely grass."

The effect was instantaneous. MacGyver's struggles stopped, and his head drooped slightly, allowing Jack to get a clear view of ice blue eyes that seemed dazed, almost as if he had been drugged. Jack snarled, trying to break free and get to the kid. "What did you do to him?"

Strey looked at Jack in what seemed like surprise. "I would've thought that they had told you about it. It's his control phrase. You say it, and he takes the orders you give him."

Jack felt like he was going to throw up. He hadn't realized exactly what the phrase he had been given did. He watched numbly as Strey tilted MacGyver's head to the side to demonstrate how unresisting he was for Jack to see. Then he snapped something in Russian to the guards holding Jack. The guards delivered a quick blow to the back of Jack's head, dazing him too much to do anything as they dragged him away from his young partner. He could only watch the receding scene as the guards dragged him away. He faintly heard Strey say, "Burning sun," and the kid began to stir, his head tilting drunkenly as he regained his bearings.

Jack was pulled around a corner and the scene was gone from his sight.

* * *

After what had to have been a full day, by Jack's calculations, a pair of Russian guards came for Jack. They grabbed him and pulled him through the compound. The American made an effort to look for both his younger companion and Strey, but was hurried through the facility too fast to spot anything.

Jack was shoved into a truck where, to his surprise and relief, MacGyver was as well. What did not relieve him, however, was the fact that the kid looked just a shade better than death. He had bruises mottling his face and throat, and was hanging limply in the restraints that strapped him to his seat. Jack stifled an angry exclamation, not wishing to draw hostile attention to either him or the kid.

The truck lurched into movement, the sudden jolt waking the man opposite Jack. A blond head lifted up to peer at Jack through pale, dazed eyes that couldn't quite focus. _Definitely concussed,_ Jack thought with a grimace. That would slightly complicate things, but hopefully the two Americans would be able to escape.

If only Jack had a clue how.

When the truck finally stopped, after about twenty minutes of driving, the only way out that Jack could see was if MacGyver could somehow pull himself out of his concussion enough to be of help. He stilled that traitorous thought with a wince. It really wasn't the kid's fault that their captor had seemed to have had a grudge against him.

The two were pulled out of the truck and forced to their knees. A gun was aimed at each man's head.

Suddenly every Russian crumpled to the ground, a bullet in their hearts. Jack looked up to see what were unmistakably Americans dropping from the trees. They approached the two kneeling men-kneeling man, Jack corrected himself, seeing that MacGyver had crumpled to the ground without the Russians holding him up.

The Americans brought them back to a small, nondescript car hidden in the bushes. They helped both Jack and his younger companion into the car.

Jack smiled to himself. They were going home.

* * *

After a car trip that led into an airplane trip that landed them back in America at an airport with another car trip after that, they were finally back at Penumbra. Jack and MacGyver had been separated for medical treatment for both, Jack assumed. As he was relatively unharmed, he was given a quick check by medical before being released into a de-briefing with Hastene.

The woman was seated across from him at a table and was listening to his report of what had happened. She seemed, Jack noticed, remarkably calm despite the fact that they hadn't retrieved the hard drive. He said as much, and she looked surprised. "Didn't you know? MacGyver managed to swallow it. He did that just before he sent out the SOS to us that alerted us that we needed to send people to get you out."

Jack huffed out short laugh, running his hands through his hair. "I should've known. Hey, how's the kid doing? I was going to look in on him before I left, but medical wouldn't tell me what room he was in."

Hastene looked slightly uncomfortable for just a moment, before saying, "He won't be receiving medical treatment unless he can pay for it himself. We had to cut him loose when we learned that Strey was a spy. In fact, I believe he just left the building."

Jack stiffened, but kept a cover over his emotions, not allowing them to show on his face. He had forgotten about the whole brainwashing thing due to the adrenaline-and a concussion that medical had informed he had received, but now it was suddenly brought to the forefront of his mind. He knew, however, that confronting Hastene about it would be a waste of time. He kept his peace, saying instead, "Pity. Well, I'd like to be on my way, so any chance I can get my money and go?"

Hastene nodded, the subject of the teen put out of her mind so fast that Jack was repulsed. He listened silently as she said, "It's been transferred to your account. It's been a pleasure working with you," and then left the building so fast that he was halfway surprised there weren't flames in his tracks.

He stood for a moment, debating where MacGyver might've gone, when he saw a blond head disappear around a corner. Jack dashed in that direction, quickly catching up to the blond head that turned out to be the kid.

Jack laid a hand on the younger man's arm, only to see MacGyver flinch in a way that tore at the older man's heart. Why had he come to care so much about the kid in the short amount of time that he had known him? _Maybe it's common human decency,_ his brain screamed at him. _Decency that Penumbra conveniently doesn't have._

MacGyver's face, mottled with vivid bruises, turned to face him before the man behind the face relaxed minutely. "Jack," he said in a hoarse voice, "What are you doing here?"

Jack shrugged one shoulder. "Heard you got kicked out. Wanted to know if you needed a place to stay."

MacGyver looked at him warily. "I can't pay you."

Jack waved away the protest. "Don't worry about it, kid."

MacGyver looked up at him for a moment, then dropped his gaze to the ground and nodded once in acquiescence. Jack sighed imperceptibly, then slung an arm around the younger man's shoulders and began to lead him towards a parked taxi. "Let's get you home, kid," he murmured.


End file.
